Consumer

Formway Life Chair

Objective

Formway had embarked on an international programme with the USA giant office furniture manufacturer Knoll. Their innovative Life chair product was hugely successful and production was ramping up.

The seat pan was however showing signs of failure due to repeated high stress loads.  InFact was bought in to analyse the problem and develop a solution.

Approach

With Finite Element Analysis tools and a significant level of plastics failure mode experience InFact set about reproducing the problem with its CAD based stress analysis tools.   The problem become immediately apparent and the modes of failure were simulated on the actual product.

A change to the structural design of the seat pan and a change in the material meant the product would no longer demonstrate the problem.

Outcomes

Life chair is manufactured in New Zealand and USA and continues to be a successful product for Formway and Knoll.